BIO: Souniya Khurana is the Co-Founder and CEO of the podcast company and a new-age media venture WYN (Wine) Studio.

STORY: When Souniya was in grade six, she failed math. Everyone kept pushing her to focus on this failure instead of her strengths. This made her create a narrative that she wasn’t good enough.

LEARNING: Own your narrative. Don’t let anybody else decide who you are or your narrative. You can change your narrative.

“Please don’t invest in things that you’re bad at.”

Souniya Khurana

Guest profile

Souniya Khurana is the Co-Founder and CEO of the most creative & sought-after branded podcast company and a new-age media venture WYN (Wine) Studio.

While Souniya’s career spans more than a decade across developing businesses and strategic roles and a failed startup before navigating her way successfully through her second entrepreneurial stint, WYN Studio, what has conspired to her success is owning her story and seeing through the many failures in her life as important milestones.

TGIF, she often says! Often? Why? Because for her, it means, “Thank God I Failed!”

Worst investment ever

Souniya was horrible at mathematics, and her family always told her that this was her weakness and that she should invest in it more to get better at it. Souniya really tried to get better at mathematics, and she did but at the expense of what she was really good at. Nobody ever amplified or helped Souniya look at her strength—English. She loved stories and the world of narratives. But nobody helped her realize that this was where she needed to invest more. She felt like she was not good enough for her entire school life.

When Souniya failed math in sixth grade, she contemplated suicide because she felt her life was not worth it. Instead of looking at it as an event in her life, she ended up looking at it as who she was—a failure. She used that as a tag up until her first venture in 2016.

No matter what happened before 2016, whether it was getting the best placement in college, good grades in university, or a good job, Souniya always felt that those things were happening by default. She didn’t believe she made them happen. She always thought she wasn’t good enough because people always pushed her to focus on her weaknesses.

It was only after 2016, when Souniya met the right mentors, that she realized that the fact was that she was not good at math, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t good enough.

Lessons learned

Own your narrative. People will tell you many things but step out of your situation, take a helicopter view, and create your own story.
Take the emotion out of situations that drain you and look at them more rationally and clearly.
Invest in your strengths.
Always remember that it’s you who’s in the arena and the only one who knows what’s going on. So don’t let anybody belittle you or decide who you are or what’s your narrative.

Andrew’s takeaways

Step outside of your situation and imagine that you’re up on the ceiling looking down, and then use that as a tool to observe yourself.
You can change your narrative.

Actionable advice

If you’re on the verge of making important decisions—whether it’s choosing the right education, right university, or career—first recognize your strengths. Think about those times when you felt you were in the absolute flow, when you loved doing what you were doing and were so engrossed and involved in that activity. Figure out what that thing is. Then see if there’s a possibility to transition that into a profession or something that’ll make you money or create an impact in the world. If yes, then go all out for it.

Souniya’s recommendations

Souniya recommends the CXO Talks podcast to aspiring CXOs, entrepreneurs, those in middle management, and anyone looking to get into executive positions. The podcast offers candid, vulnerable stories to help you overcome murky moments or regrets.

No.1 goal for the next 12 months

Souniya’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to get into better health and fitness because she now fully understands that her health is her wealth.

Parting words

“There are so many insights that come from the worst investments. I don’t think there’s any other way to get better at investing than to learn from others’ mistakes. So I think you’re doing a phenomenal job, Andrew.”

Souniya Khurana

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